Monday, July 28, 2008

Rock On!

Not that you really NEED a tutorial to tell you how to paint rocks. But, this is a great project that my girls & I do often. It's just fun & relaxing & the rock is your blank canvas!

The first thing to do is go rock collecting. Gather rocks of all shapes & sizes. Now wash off all the dirt & leaves & slug guts with some soapy water. (Don't you love my new handmade scrubbie? I got it last weekend at "Art in the Park".)

Once the rocks are clean, sit them out in the sunshine to dry.Get your supplies ready! You'll need acrylic paints... ...& paint brushes. Now, where did I put my brushes??? Oh, there they are! And it's a good idea to lay out some paper on your work surface -no mess on the table & easy clean up!

Paint away! I couldn't resist painting sweets.I found a treasure in this big ole rock because it's gonna make a GREAT door stop for my art studio!

My little porcupine kinda has bear ears, but he's still sweet. These rocks are an example of how you don't have to paint the WHOLE rock--you can let the cool little specks & flecks show.OR, you can paint the whole rock like I did here. These are some garden markers I made 2 years ago for my mom & grandmother's vegetable garden. They plopped the rocks at the end of each row of scrummy yummy veggies.

You may want to coat your rocks with some clear spray sealer. If they will be outdoors, this is advisable. The colors may also fade a bit from the sunshine. These garden markers were sprayed with about 5 coats.

Check out THIS LINK for some super, super, super cute ideas from Martha Stewart about different rock crafts!

So i feel like such a copy-cat!! But we are soooo doing this sometime this week. Wish i read it earlier when the daughter was asking "do you have any ideas on what i can do?" Thanks for the great ideas!